History 406/506
Issues in World History to 1500
Winter 2008
Instructor: Patricia Ebrey
112A Smith
office hours: Thursday 10:00-11:30 or by appointment
This lecture-discussion class will explore some of the really big questions in history: Why did empires rises in some places rather than others? What accounts for the size and durability of civilizations? What can we attribute to technology? To geography? To ideas?
This course does not assume knowledge of any specific region’s history, but will be more interesting to those who have already taken at least one course on the history of some part of the old world. There will be no attempt to cover the facts of world history; emphasis rather will be on processes, patterns, and explanatory frameworks.
The format of the course will be lecture and discussion. Monday classes will be lecture, Wednesday classes discussion.
Graduate students may take the 400-level version of the class, but if they do additional work, described below, they can take it for 500-level credit.
Three books are available for purchase at the bookstore:
Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Norton, 1999)
William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (Knopf, 1998)
David Morgan, The Mongols (either the first, 1986 edition, or the new, 2007 second edition)
Other readings are available online.
Assignments:
Class discussion and reading reactions (25%).
Discussion will be both on line and in class. The class will be divided in three, and every third week students must post online a paragraph-long reaction to each of the readings and raise an issue they would like to have discussed in class. Post them at https://catalysttools.washington.edu/gopost/board/ebrey/3608 (also can access through course website: http://faculty.washington.edu/ebrey/406-08/index.html
Short paper (25%). Each student will write a 4-6 page analysis/assessment of an article on world history to 1500, preferably from the Journal of World History (available online through UW library). Your analysis should consider not only assumptions and arguments, but also how the issue is framed and how evidence is used. In reading the article pay particular attention to the footnotes. Can you identify earlier scholarship that the author is responding to? Does the author draw on a body of primary sources? Is the nature of this body of material clear to you? How well does the evidence support the arguments? Due 2/20
For graduate credit: After reading the article, read at least one work cited in the article, choosing one that you expect will help you understand why the author frames the issue the way he/she does. Include analysis of it in your paper.
Long paper (50%). Select one of the broad topics cover in class (that is, technology, disease, trade, religion, and so on) and write an 8-10 essay on a relatively broad issue within it, drawing not only on readings done in class but also several other sources as well. Your paper should cover more than just one part of the world. If you are unsure of the suitability of your topic, be sure to check with the instructor. Due 3/5
For graduate credit: The long essay should draw on both primary and secondary sources (at least primary sources in translation), and can be longer if desired.
Presentations: Graduate students are expected to make presentations of their long papers during the last week. Undergraduate students may also volunteer to share their main arguments.
Schedule:
Week 1 1/7, 9 Thinking about world history
Monday Lecture topic: Some world historians: Arnold Toynbee, William McNeill, Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
Wednesday readings:
William McNeill, “The Changing Shape of World History,” History and Theory 34.2 (1995):8-26. (online access via JSTOR)
Jerry H.
Bentley, “Myths, Wagers, and Some Moral Implications of World History,” Journal of World History, 16.1 (2005) :51-82. Online access from Journal of World History.
GROUP 1 POSTS
Week 2 1/14, 16 Asking big questions
Monday Lecture topic: Ecological perspectives
Wednesday readings:
Guns, Germs, and Steel, 13-191
GROUP 2 POSTS
Week 3 1/23
Monday :
Wednesday readings:
Guns, Germs, and Steel, 193-401.
GROUP 3 POSTS
Week 4 1/28, 30 The role of technologies
Monday: no class
Wednesday readings:
Jack Goody and Ian Watt, “The Consequences of Literacy,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 5.3 (1963) :304-345. Online access via JSTOR
GROUP 1 POSTS
Week 5 2/4, 6 The impact of disease
Monday Lecture topic: History
of disease in early
Wednesday readings:
William McNeill, Plagues and People, pp. 19-207.
GROUP 2 POSTS
Week 6 2/11, 13 The spread of religions
Monday Lecture topic: The case of Buddhism
Wednesday readings:
Jerry Bentley,
“Missionaries, Pilgrims, and the Spread of World Religions,” in
GROUP 3 POSTS
Week 7 2/20 Economic factors and cross-regional trade
Monday: holiday
Wednesday readings:
Janet Abu-Lughod, “The World System in the Thirteenth Century: Dead-End or Precursor? In Michael Adas, ed. Islamic and European Expansion: The forging of a Global Order (1993), 75-102. Online reserve
GROUP 1 POSTS
Week 8 2/25, 27 Primary and Secondary State Formation SHORT PAPERS DUE
Monday Lecture topic: The Case of Japan
Wednesday readings:
Victor Lieberman, “Transcending East-West Dichotomies: State and Culture Formation in Six Ostensibly Disparate Areas,” Modern Asian Studies 31 (1997), 463-546. Online access via JSTOR.
GROUP 2 POSTS
Week 9 3/5 The Mongol empire
Monday no
class
Wednesday readings: David
Morgan, The Mongols, pp. 32-198 (1986
ed.), or 30-173 (second edition).
GROUP 3 POSTS
Week 10 3/10, 12 Summing up LONG PAPERS DUE
Monday Lecture topic: The size of states, or why did
Wednesday: Presentations